


In The Key of Major Finn

by Mhalachai



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gilmore Girls
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Post-Series, something like a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1540097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mhalachai/pseuds/Mhalachai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years later, Lorelai liked to start the story like this: One sunny summer Connecticut day, Adonis walked into the Dragonfly Inn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Key of Major Finn

**Author's Note:**

> Written in March, 2007. 
> 
> One of those _what ifs_.

* * *

Years later, Lorelai liked to start the story like this: One sunny summer Connecticut day, Adonis walked into the Dragonfly Inn.

Not Adonis really; his hair wasn't blond and his skin wasn't tanned golden, but the first time Lorelai saw him, she fell in love.

Michel was taking his break, so Lorelai was covering the desk as the man, not too young and not too old, not too tall and with hair cut military short, walked through the front door. He had a duffle bag in his left hand and he held the door open as he looked around, summer sunlight spilling around him in golden waves. Lorelai half-expected cherubim to start singing at his arrival.

Then he stepped inside, and Lorelai wished she could find a way to have him check-in without opening his mouth. He'd speak, and she'd realize that he was a stuck-up annoying arrogant selfish--

"Ma'am?" Adonis stopped in front of the reception desk. "If I might trouble you for a moment of your time?"

"No trouble, none at all," Lorelai stuttered, witty responses flying out the window. "That's why I'm here, giving away moments of my time, like sands through the hourgla--" Some self-preservation instinct for her dignity kicked in, and she closed her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she started again. "Welcome to the Dragonfly Inn, I'm Lorelai Gilmore. How can I help you?"

Adonis had a small smile playing over his lips. "I don't have a reservation, but I was told that this is the best place to stay in Stars Hollow."

"Of course, a room." Lorelai turned to the computer, almost knocking over the pen jar in the process. After a few moments of tapping on the keyboard, she said, "You're in luck. We were booked full, but we had a cancellation this morning."

"Good." Adonis dropped his bag and rested his hands on the counter. The summer sun glinted off something on the ring finger of his left hand. _Married_.

Years of inn-keeping discretion flew out the window, and Lorelai heard herself asking, "Will anyone else be joining you?"

Adonis followed Lorelai's eyes to his left hand. He pulled his hands off the counter. "No."

Cheeks burning, Lorelai went back to the computer. She knew better that to pry, at any time, but especially before the guest had even checked in! If she was anyone on staff, she'd have kicked her own ass. "I'll need some ID, like a driver's license, and a credit card for the deposit."

"Of course." He dug out his wallet and passed over two plastic cards. "I haven't had a chance to get a civilian license since I've been back in the country. I hope that's all right."

Lorelai stared at the military-issue identification card. "No problem, Major Finn." Riley Finn, thirty-two and one of America's finest.

The Major winced. "Riley, please." He did that half-smile again. "Whenever I hear 'Major' I look around for the old man."

"Father?"

"Boss."

"Sure thing." Lorelai added the necessary information to the computer and handed Riley back his cards. "Will you be in town long?"

"I'm not sure," he said, tucking his wallet back in his pants.

_Lucky wallet,_ Lorelai thought, then shook her head. "Bill will show you up to your room," she said, managing to both wave Bill over and hand Riley his key without putting anyone's eye out. "I hope you enjoy your stay at the Dragonfly Inn."

Riley gave her a quick nod, then followed the bellboy. As soon as the heels of his well-polished shoes vanished up the stairs, Lorelai made a bee-line for the kitchen.

Two hours before dinner and the place was at its usual stage of three-alarm chaos. Lorelai didn't even blink as Sookie swung around with a frying pan and almost decapitated her salad guy. "Coffee!" Lorelai said, heading for the pot.

"It's fresh!" Sookie called as she flipped and stirred. "What's up?"

Lorelai haphazardly poured coffee into a mug and took a bracing sip before she could speak. "I just checked Riley Finn into the inn."

Sookie glanced up from her pan. "Riley Finn? Is that a television star or something?"

Lorelai groaned. "No, he's just Riley Finn and I acted like I was thirteen."

"You kissed him and ran away?" Sookie guessed. From the other side of the kitchen, something crashed. "Ooh, you gawked!"

"Shut up," Lorelai said.

"Is he cute?" Sookie poured a sauce into a strainer and gave it a taste. "I bet he's cute."

"He's a baby." Lorelai buried her face in her palm. "A gorgeous, amazing, married major Marine baby."

Sookie patted Lorelai's shoulder on the way to the spices. "Show him to me at dinner tonight," she instructed. "Now, do you want some chocolate?"

Before Lorelai could answer, the yardman burst into the kitchen. "Lorelai, Cletus is on the porch again!"

Lorelai sighed. Taking a carrot from the counter, she said, "Maybe later."

* * *

"Dinner smells good," came a voice from over Lorelai's shoulder. A military, married voice, Lorelai reminded herself.

She turned around, all smiles. "The food is the other best part of the Dragonfly Inn," she said. Then her smile grew. "You're in a dinner jacket."

Riley tugged on the sleeves of his navy blue coat. "I wasn't sure if we were supposed to dress for dinner." While a million inappropriate images danced through Lorelai's head, he shook his head. "I mean dress _up_ for dinner."

"As long as you've got shirt and shoes, the Health Board says you get service," Lorelai said.

Riley smiled, a real full-blown smile, and Lorelai's knees went a little weak. "Do you stick around during dinner?" he asked. "Bill told me you own the place, do owners get to stay for dinner?"

"Sometimes." Lorelai reviewed what she had to go home to. A house with a dog and week-old pizza, and not much else. "Why do you ask?"

"I was going to ask you a bit about the town," Riley said. "Bill said you're the expert on Stars Hollow, and the least I could do in return is buy you dinner."

Lorelai swallowed. Why was it always like this? She fell head over heels for a guy that was taken. "I'm not sure," she said, trying to be as delicate as possible.

"Why not?"

Lorelai gestured at his hands. "Mrs. Major?"

Riley looked at his left hand as if he'd never seen it before. He pulled off his wedding ring for a moment, then pushed it back on his ring finger. "Sam."

Lorelai wouldn't have thought it possible to fit so much barely-masked emotion into a three-letter word. Heart sinking, she said, "She's, um..."

Riley settled his ring on his finger, then looked steadily at Lorelai. "Two years. In the line of duty, too, just like she said she'd go out." He cleared his throat. "I did just want to ask you about the town."

Feeling like seven different kinds of spazzy, Lorelai gave him a nod. "I'd love to answer any question you have about Stars Hollow. And dinner's on me."

"I don't--"

"Please," Lorelai said firmly. "I insist."

"All right." Riley hesitated, then stood back. "Lead the way."

At least he hadn't offered his arm. Lorelai was older than him, but not that old. "Do you like lamb chops?" she asked, guiding Riley into the dining room. "Sookie makes lamb chops that are to die for. Or pork tenderloin. You're not a vegetarian, are you?" 

"Anyone that grew up on my parents' farm wasn't going to have a chance to be a vegetarian," Riley said as he held out Lorelai's chair for her.

"Whereas I just like meat," Lorelai said jokingly, then wondered how it was possible to make that sound so incredibly dirty. "Oh look, here's the waiter."

She felt Riley's eyes on her as she stared at her menu, and she couldn't for the life of her remember the last time her stomach had felt like this.

* * *

"Do you know where I could find an apartment in town?" 

Lorelai managed to avoid choking on her coffee. "Make some noise when you sneak up on a girl!" she gasped out, wiping coffee off her chin. "Otherwise we're getting you a bell!"

Riley leaned against the porch support and looked out at the early-morning sun covering the grounds. "I was genetically engineered to be part cat," he said, with a thing of something Lorelai thought was humor. Or maybe deadly earnestness, and that was a little too Twilight Zone for her.

"Damned army," Lorelai grumbled. She stood up. "You, sit." It only took her a minute to get another cup from the kitchen, and she snagged a plate of pastries on her way outside. "Eat."

"Not everyone needs to eat right when they get up," Riley said, although he did reach for the biggest croissant in sight. 

Lorelai eyed him, askance. "You went running again this morning, didn't you?"

Riley was suddenly very interested in his pastry. "Maybe."

"I knew it!" Lorelai flopped back on the porch chair. "Crazy army people. You're not supposed to exercise every day, it's bad for you."

"If you say so." Riley didn't bother to hide his grin.

Lorelai grumbled and hid behind her coffee cup. She was never giving Michel a vacation ever again, especially not since it meant that she had to be at the inn by seven o'clock in the morning. Even God wasn't up this early. "Did you ask me something?"

"Apartment in town," Riley reminded her.

"Hmm." Lorelai looked up to see Cletus wandering unescorted through the landscape. "I can ask around. You might have more luck renting a house. We're not a big condo town."

"Thank you." Riley leaned back. "Shouldn't someone stop that horse from eating the flowers?"

"Probably." Lorelai didn't move. "Why Stars Hollow?"

Riley poured himself more coffee. "Why not?"

"Do you want the list itemized by importance or alphabetical?"

"Alphabetical?"

"Okay." Lorelai straightened up. "Al's Pancake World, boring, crazy, dull, eccentric, flying plates, gossip--" 

"You can stop," Riley said with a laugh. "How far could you go?"

"At least to K."

"How is Kirk these days?"

"Kirkish." Lorelai drained the last of the coffee carafe into her cup. "Seriously, why here?"

Riley stood and leaned against the beam, framed by the early-morning sun. Lorelai drank in the sight of how his ironed khakis and golf shirt clung to various well-built parts of him, his damp hair spiked up in the sun like a halo, and felt something twist in her middle. 

"Seriously?" Riley stared out at the day. "I drew a map of all the bad things that I had to deal with. Stars Hollow was the farthest point from all of them." He paused. "Actually, it was Woodbridge, but Stars Hollow has less traffic."

Lorelai pulled her feet up onto her seat. The morning was so quiet, so uninterrupted, that she could pretend it was just the two of them in the whole world. "Don't Majors have to go back to yell at people?"

Her attempt at a joke fell flat. "I'm on leave." Riley hitched up his pant-leg and sat on the porch railing. "While they decide if they want to recall me or discharge me."

Lorelai didn't know much about the military, other than that most were off to war in far-away lands. Getting into an early-morning discussion of U.S. foreign policy seemed like a bad idea. "Don't they need anyone they can get?"

"Sam and I... our unit was highly specialized." Riley shrugged. "Let's just say that our skills are no longer in demand."

There were several things Lorelai wanted to pick out of that statement, but she settled on the one that didn't involve Riley's dead wife. "Change in enemy tactics?" she asked.

An unidentifiable expression crossed Riley's face. "A change in available resources." He pushed himself off the railing. "If you'll excuse me." He headed off the porch without a backwards glance. 

Lorelai was left feeling like she had done something wrong, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what.

Still, she stayed where she was and watched Riley coax Cletus out of the flower bed and guide him back to the barn. Maybe he wasn't kidding when he said he was a farm boy.

Nothing about Riley Finn made any sense.

* * *

Riley moved into the McIntyre house on Constabulary Lane, shopped at Doose's Market every Tuesday, went to church on Sunday and helped old ladies across the street. Patty and Babette cornered him occasionally to pump him for information; Lorelai's estimation of Riley's military skills went up when they never came away with anything useful.

Whenever Lorelai was up before seven in the morning, she saw him running through town. He gave her a nod but didn't stop; she raised her coffee cup in a salute to the physical exertion of others. And she always stopped to watch him running away from her. Life as a civilian certainly hadn't softened his physique. 

She didn't talk about him at the inn anymore, but Sookie would give her the occasional knowing look when Lorelai breezed into the kitchen, at work an hour early. 

She also didn't mention him to Rory. She told herself that Rory had enough to worry about, being a junior reporter at the New York Times, but deep down she knew that wasn't it. Lorelai didn't want to admit to her daughter that she had a crush on a widowed, military man seven years her junior. She didn't even want to admit that to herself.

She saw Luke occasionally, doing whatever. Her path seldom took her to Luke's diner anymore. That ship had sailed, but the lonely, aching feeling still remained in her chest.

Her life went on, slowly. She went to work, talked to Rory on the phone, walked Paul Anka. The dog had finally mellowed enough to go for walks across the town, and Lorelai took advantage of that fact to expand her normal route past Riley's house. For Paul Anka's sake, she told herself.

One lazy August day, Lorelai was watching Paul Anka sniff his way skeptically along a white picket fence, when Riley's car pulled up to the sidewalk. "Fancy meeting you here," Lorelai said, blushing a little as Riley got out of his car. 

"I live here," he reminded her. "Who's this?" 

"Paul Anka." The dog looked up at his name, then wandered over to lick Riley's shoes. "He likes you."

"He likes gravy. I spilled my lunch." Riley opened his trunk to reveal a carload of stuff. 

"Wow. You buy the store out?" Lorelai looped Paul Anka's leash around the fence post and went to help.

"I figured that since I would be here for a while, I should at least get some stuff for the house." Juggling what looked like half a bookcase and a couch cushion, Riley managed to unlock the front door of the house. "Thanks."

"No problem." Lorelai took a quick peek around as she set down the clinking bags. The house was depressingly bare. "Were you robbed? Haven't you been here for a month?"

Riley propped the door open with a battered book. "Wasn't sure it would stick."

Lorelai frowned. "So you're here for a while, then? They didn't kick you out of the army, did they? Can they do that?"

"They can and they did." Riley went back out to the car, Lorelai tagging along behind him. 

Lorelai shook her head. "What are you going to do?"

Riley hefted a large box. "Would you get that bag?" he asked, avoiding the question.

"Are you sticking around?" Lorelai pressed. "I know Patty and Babette would love to know."

Riley gave Lorelai a look. "I'm not sure," he finally said. "I am for now."

For some reason, Lorelai's heart jumped. "Good," was all she said. 

After the car was unloaded, Lorelai stood in the middle of Riley's empty living room, looking around. "This place could really use... stuff."

"The couch is coming next week," Riley called from the kitchen. "Do you want some iced tea? Or a beer?"

"That depends on what you're having." Lorelai wandered over to the fireplace. Two unframed pictures were propped against the mantle.

"If I say iced tea?"

"Then I'll have a beer."

There was a pause. "What if I said beer?"

"Then I'll have a beer."

Lorelai could almost hear him rolling his eyes. "One beer, coming right up."

The battered photograph on the left was of Riley and an older man and woman, in front of a quaint farmhouse. The photograph on the right was of a young woman with a beautiful smile. Was that Sam? Could it be anyone else?

"Here." A beer bottle appeared in Lorelai's line of sight. "It's not the best, but it's cold."

"Thanks." Lorelai took a sip while she tried to figure out what to say. "Is that Sam?"

Riley was quiet for a long moment. "That's her." He raised his beer bottle in a toast. "To good people." 

Lorelai clinked her bottle against his. "She's beautiful."

Riley actually snorted. "Whenever I told her that, she'd pretend to hit me. She was really smart. Came from a military family, too."

"Are those your parents?" Lorelai indicated the other photograph. 

"Yeah." Riley shook his head. "Iowa farm, whole nine yards. I haven't been back to see them since Sam died."

"Ah." Lorelai took a long drink. After she swallowed, she realized that Riley was staring at her. "What?"

"You're not going to ask me why not?"

"I don't want to pry."

Riley's eyebrows went up.

"What?"

"What's the real reason?"

Lorelai sighed. "Fine, I get family strife. I mean, I really, really get family strife."

"It's not that." Riley walked across the empty living room, bare feet silent on the hardwood floor. "It's too... normal. I go back there and I'm eighteen again, in high school. Mom's making dinner and Dad's talking about the chickens not laying, and nothing ever changes."

"Nothing except you?"

Riley pivoted slowly. "Something like that." He frowned at the ground. "Would you put a couch here?"

"Yeah, if I was on crack," Lorelai said without thinking. She crossed the floor. "How about here?" A loud bark sounded outside. "See? Even Paul Anka agrees."

"One day, you'll have to explain to me why you named him Paul Anka." 

"I think the question is why not name a dog Paul Anka?" Lorelai smiled. 

Riley sighed. He walked to Lorelai's side to survey the room from the potential location of the phantom couch. "If I put it here, I'll have to get a TV."

"You got something against TV?" Lorelai finished her beer. 

"There's nothing good on."

"You could watch movies."

"Maybe." Riley looked down at Lorelai. "Can I ask you a question?"

Lorelai pretended to think. "No, I don't know how they get the caramel into the Caramilk bar."

"The last time Miss Patty cornered me in the bookstore, she said you used to live with someone named Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"Is that someone you need to be getting home to?"

It took Lorelai a full minute to figure out what Riley meant. "Oh, no, not at all!" She shook her head. "Wow, Patty's usually better than this. You didn't get the full run-down on everyone in town?"

"Only half," Riley said apologetically. "Kirk pulled a bookshelf down on himself and they needed to call the paramedics."

Lorelai nodded knowingly. "Rory's my daughter," she explained. "But she lives in New York." Handing Riley her empty bottle, Lorelai reached around to her purse and pulled out her wallet. "This is her graduation picture."

"High school?" Riley said, taking the offered picture.

"Yale." Lorelai felt the familiar surge of pride at her daughter's accomplishments. "She's a junior reporter for the Times."

Riley blinked. "That would make her..."

"Twenty-two."

For some reason, Riley looked out the window at the sunny day, then back to Lorelai. "And that makes you?" He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude. You do not look anywhere near old enough to have a daughter." He looked back at Rory's picture. "She has your eyes."

"And my sunny personality," Lorelai said with a smile. "Don't worry about it." Suddenly conscious of how close she was standing to Riley, she stepped back. "Thanks for the beer, I should get Paul Anka home."

"Thanks for the help," Riley said. He walked her to the front door. "I'll see you around?"

Lorelai couldn't stop her heart from doing cartwheels in her chest. "I'd like that." She managed to escape without tripping over her own feet, which was accomplishment enough on its own. She felt Riley's eyes on her as she walked down the street. Once she turned the corner, she reached down to pat Paul Anka's head. "This was a good day," she whispered. 

Paul Anka barked.

* * *

A week later, when Lorelai was waiting in line at Westons, she spotted Riley sitting on the steps of the town gazebo. He was talking into a cell phone, and he did not look happy.

"Your usual?"

Lorelai turned around, startled. "Better make it two," she said. The woman behind the counter gave Lorelai a look, but used to the frequency and volume of coffee ordered by Lorelai, said nothing.

The breeze outside held a faint hint of autumn, that indescribable smell that heralded the end of summer. Lorelai skirted a couple of kids playing hopscotch and jaywalked across to the town square. As she drew closer, she could make out a bit of Riley's conversation.

"No, I'm not-- Buffy, be reasonable! Fine, at least have a little common sense!"

Lorelai's steps slowed as she neared the gazebo. Riley didn't exactly have the air of someone who wanted to be interrupted. 

"I was just offering--" Riley raked his hand through his hair. "You know what? Never mind." With that, he slapped his phone shut. He looked up at Lorelai, almost angry. "What?"

She held out one of the coffee cups in his direction. "Mid-afternoon jolt?"

Riley let out a measured breath, and with it most of his anger seemed to bleed away. "Thanks," he said, subdued. 

"Mind if I pull up some steps?" Lorelai waited until Riley shifted over on the stairs. "Nice spot for an argument."

Riley tapped on the plastic lid with his thumbnail. "So that's going to be all over town in what, a day?"

Lorelai patted his knee sympathetically. "Honey, it's already everywhere."

Riley groaned. "The last time I lived in a small town, no one noticed anything. Now it's like I've got video cameras on me all the time." He shook his head.

"It's a perfect Sunday morning in our quiet little mountain town," Lorelai said. "Give us half an hour for something else to come along and drag the town's attention off you." She took a sip of coffee. "Although next time, you might want to have phone fights at your place."

"I know." As Riley lifted his cup, Lorelai got a good look at his left hand. His ring finger was bare. "It's just that Buffy called and as usual, everything's all about her."

Lorelai almost choked on a mouthful of Colombian blend. "I'm sorry, you know someone named _Buffy_?"

"Yeah." Riley put his coffee cup down. "We worked together a while ago, and she used to be... we used to be involved."

"Oh." Lorelai couldn't look anywhere but Riley's hands. When had he stopped wearing his wedding ring? 

"She's still involved in... in the life." Riley's gesturing hands encompassed a vague shape rather like an pear. "And according to her, they don't need any help." He folded his hands. "Nothing like being told your job can be done by a bunch of teenagers."

Lorelai bit her lip. She knew he had to be joking, or at least exaggerating, but he sounded so... bitter. 

"Not that it matters." He looked out at the town. "Did I tell you why I left the Marines?"

"I thought they kicked you out," Lorelai said, thinking back. 

"Early retirement," Riley clarified. "Same thing."

"But you're thirty-two."

"Doesn't matter."

"But you're _thirty-two_ ," Lorelai repeated. "That's not early retirement, that's neo-natal retirement!" She blinked. "Wow. I hope you have a good pension plan."

Riley picked up his coffee cup and knocked back a drink. "It's not about the money," he said as a pack of boys from the grade school ran screaming past the gazebo. "It's the utter lack of anything else to do."

Lorelai finished off her coffee. She considered digging in her purse to find gum or candy, anything to keep her mouth occupied in ways that didn't involve embarrassing herself with this man. She finally settled on asking, "Are you sticking around?"

Riley looked at her. "Yes," he said after a while. "But not because I have nothing else to do."

Oh. _Oh._ "You're not wearing your ring," Lorelai blurted out, caution to the wind.

Riley pulled the chain around his neck out from under his shirt. On the end of the chain, next to his dog tags, hung his ring. "Sam would have called me a fool for holding on like this. We knew going in that it wasn't going to last."

"What?" Lorelai demanded, incredulous and hurting for him at the same time. "That's nuts! Nothing lasts, but that doesn't mean you can't remember what you had!"

Riley tucked his tag back under his shirt. "That's what I told her when I asked her to marry me."

"Good then," Lorelai said, still a little angry at something she couldn't define. "Right." She stood. "I have to go to work."

She walked down the steps a bit faster than normal. She had almost made it to the sidewalk when Riley called out, "Thanks for the coffee, Lorelai."

The wind blowing through the town fluttered in her hair as she walked away, whipping up the faint promise of autumn, and it made Lorelai smile. Winter was still her favorite season, but this year, late summer was coming in a close second.

* * *

The first leaves of the season were starting to change when Rory called. Lorelai sat on the porch in the fading daylight, listening to her little girl chatter about work at a big-city newspaper, and tried not to feel old and washed up. _Maybe this is how Riley feels,_ she thought as Rory mentioned her current assignment in the Features department.

"It's not big," Rory was saying, "But it's a real start. Everything's so different than the Yale Daily News."

"Sounds amazing."

Rory was quiet for a moment. "Mom, is everything okay? Is Dad making trouble with the divorce?"

"No, that went through in June, you know that" Lorelai said.

"Then is it Luke? Oooh, are you getting back together with Luke?"

"Hold your horses, Perez Hilton," Lorelai ordered. "I'm not going to get back together with Luke."

"So what's got you so spacey?"

At her side, Lorelai's cell phone rang. The number was unfamiliar, but it had a local area code. "Hon, can you hold on a sec?"

"Sure."

Lorelai put down the house phone and flipped open her cell. "Hello?"

"Lorelai?" Riley's voice came over the line. 

"Hi," Lorelai said slowly. "What's up?"

Riley took a deep breath. "I had something to ask you."

"Uh huh..."

"Would you like to go to dinner sometime? With me?"

Lorelai's heart and stomach began to dance a fandango in her chest. "As a matter of fact, I would," she said, hoping her voice was calm and not making her sound like a squeeing teen. "Did you have something in mind?"

"Yeah, I did," he said, sounding surprised. "There's a steak house in Hartford I heard is really good, and if I recall correctly, you like meat."

Lorelai blushed at his not-so-subtle reference to their first... no, second conversation. "I seem to recall saying that."

"Good. When's good for you?"

"Thursday?"

"Perfect. Can I pick you up at eight?"

"I'll see you then."

Lorelai closed her cell and picked up the house phone, heart pounding in her chest. "Rory?"

"Hi." The youngest Gilmore sounded faintly bored. "Did you know they pulled red M&Ms in 1976 over health concerns?"

"I have a date on Thursday."

"What?" All hints of boredom vanished. "With _who_? Do I know him? Is it someone in town? Oh god, is it Andrew?"

"It's not Andrew!" Lorelai settled down in her chair. "His name is Riley Finn, and he's new in town."

"You're dating the mysterious military hottie?" Rory demanded. "Lane's been emailing about him for weeks! She said he keeps coming into the diner and orders burgers with chili fries! You're like junk food soul mates!"

"Slow down, Yente, we're just going out for dinner."

"Tell me everything," Rory ordered. "Leave out no detail."

Lorelai thought over everything she knew about Riley Finn. "He seems like a really good guy," she said with a smile. "All-American boy... but there's something about him. Hidden layers."

"Sounds like he's really gotten to you."

Lorelai sighed. "He had, kid. He has."

_the end. or maybe just a beginning._


End file.
